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Back in November, I noted an article on the website of Christian Concern about Scott Lively; the piece for the most part was sourced from MassResistance, and described how Pastor Scott Lively had been the target of protests:

There have been reports that ‘Occupy’ activists in America have started targeting Christians, in a new development for the protest movement.

…Although his focus is on helping people live by Christian principles, Dr Lively was targeted because of his pro-family activism.

At the time, I thought this was just a piece of opportunism by Christian Concern, which is keen to drum up support through a narrative of persecution. However, I have since become aware* that Paul Diamond, who is closely allied with Christian Concern, actually addressed MassResistance in September:

On Sunday afternoon, Sept. 18, Paul Diamond is coming to the United States exclusively to address the MassResistance Banquet to reveal, explain, and warn us on “What is happening in Britain – and what you must do now in America.”

This is a breathtaking opportunity that you must not miss. Mr. Diamond is a gifted speaker and a committed Christian. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime occasion.

Diamond apparently spoke on homosexuality and on the various religious liberty cases he is known for handling (I discussed some of these here):

First, spread the truth. We must move out of our own sphere of influence and create debate among average Americans about the harmful truths of the homosexual agenda, he said.

…Secondly, we need to keep trying to develop major media contacts to publicize the truth… For example, British Airways employees have been banned from wearing even small cross necklaces, but allowed to wear turbans, Hindu ponytails, or any other jewelry with religious symbolism. This made the front page of a major UK newspaper.

Brian Camenker (founder of MassResistance) and Sally Kern followed, and there were closing remarks from Scott Lively.

Diamond and Christian Concern have a number of US links already: Christian Concern takes advice from the Alliance Defense Fund and is a “partner” of the World Congress of Families. Last November, Diamond and Christian Concern’s director, Andrea Minichiello Williams, also forged links with the EDL-supporting Tennessee Freedom Coalition.

However, Lively is a particularly controversial figure – he is famously the co-author of a book blaming gay people for the Holocaust, and he has been linked to authoritarian anti-gay measures in Russia and Uganda. Brett Edward Stout noted the Russian situation in March:

Pouncing on antigay momentum around the 2006 ban on the Moscow Pride parade [blogged here – RB], American evangelist Scott Lively wrote a letter to the Russian people after completing a speaking tour in the country… Through his tour, Lively closely allied himself with the Russian Orthodoxy and presented its adherents with a road map to protect themselves from what they saw as gay propaganda.

Of the several steps he lays out, the third is this: “Criminalize the public advocacy of homosexuality. My philosophy is to leave homosexuals alone if they keep their lifestyle private, and not to force them into therapy if they don’t want it. However, homosexuality is destructive to individuals and to society and it should never [be] publicly promoted. The easiest way to discourage ‘gay pride’ parades and other homosexual advocacy is to make such activity illegal in the interest of public health and morality.”

The full letter can be seen here. This is of some significance given that several Russian cities have subsequently passed laws along these lines: two men were recently arrested in St Petersburg for holding signs in support of gay rights (The bill’s author, city assemblyman Vitaly Milanov, also intends to attend a Madonna pop-concert in the city to see if he can find cause to have her arrested). Lively also has links with New Generation, a neo-Pentecostal church in Latvia known for its anti-gay teachings; Minichiello Williams met the church’s administrator and other New Generation figures at a church in Northampton in November 2010.

Lively spoke in Uganda in 2009; numerous sites have noted his report that local activists had told him that “our campaign was like a nuclear bomb against the ‘gay’ agenda in Uganda”. He supports a “revised” version of the notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill (without the “extremely harsh punishments including the death penalty and life imprisonment for certain forms of ‘aggravated homosexuality'”), although he is currently being sued by a Ugandan gay rights group in a federal court in Massachusetts for allegedly “violating international law by inciting the persecution of gay men and lesbians in Uganda”. Lively takes the view that the existence of gay people in Uganda is the result of a plot orchestrated by George Soros, and MassResistance blames Soros for the legal case.

Meanwhile, MassResistance recently held a Tea Party-hosted “Patriot’s Day Rally” in Boston featuring Lively and the World Congress of Families’ Don Feder, among others (Feder has his own contacts in Russia). The event attracted protestors, who were reportedly abused by one of the speakers as “faggots”.

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Note on Attacks

Anyone who comments on current affairs on-line risks being smeared by attack sites and/or abusive Tweets. This is particularly so if one chooses to challenge dishonesty or other kinds of reprehensible behaviour.

As a result of making a stand in a few particular instances, I have become the focus of a number of such attacks.

The bad faith of such sites and Tweets ought to be self-evident. However, any readers interested in the true background can read this and this.